Winner of the October 2013 Sea Glass Photo Contest

Congratulations, Sugie!

The Ocean - An Expedient Garbage Disposal Site?

The ocean is so vast and the volume of water so great that the tiny bit of garbage dumped in a little spot along thousands of miles of beach must have appeared harmless to past generations in the United States and other countries.

Now, however, we look at things very differently.

With the huge increase in population of virtually all coastlines along our oceans and lakes along with awareness of the ecological damage apparent in the world's large water bodies, knowledgeable people would be scandalized by seeing garbage dumped onto a beach.

In the more developed countires we don't see the dumping on the beach to the extent it was done in the past. But trash from old dump sites continues to fall into the ocean or lakes in various places even in the United States.

In third-world coutries, trash is still being disposed of in ocean waters either legally or illegally.

All of our forefathers lived in what would be considered third-world conditions and they also found it expedient and convenient to use the ocean as a dump site.

The garbage dump in many cases was a bluff above a beach and this included any size dump, from small household trash dumps to large city-wide dump sites.

Today, these old dumpsites look pretty sanitary - the rotten, rusty, smelly part of the garbage has long disintegrated, dissolved, oxidized, and disappeared. What is left is the best part - sea glass.

4 - Huanchaco, Peru - Beach Dump current 2013 (illegal).

Dumping garbage directly onto the beach is going on in many third-world countries at the present time

The Future of Sea Glass - Is it Running Out?

Opinions vary as to how much glass is being dumped onto beaches around the world. Some feel that since plastic has largely replaced glass bottles and jars, the dumped glass that ends up becoming sea glass is limited and will eventually run out.

One factor in particular, though, is left out - the extreme population growth.

As a mild example, look at the population of San Diego, California.

In 1930, the census showed 148,000 people in San Diego. At the present time, the population is around 1,400,000 or almost 10 times as much. So, if 1 person tossed 10 bottles out in 1930 and 10 people tossed 1 bottle each out in 2013, the same amount of glass is going into the trash.

Not that San Diego has an ocean dump problem (well, that's debatable to some who have explored south San Diego County's beaches :-).

So, what does that mean?

It means that, yes, fewer glass containers are used per person, perhaps. But it stands to reason that the huge increase in number of people and the resulting incredible accumulation of trash actually accounts for more glass products dumped than ever before in history.

A portion of these glass products are still being dumped directly into the ocean. Others get there indirectly. Perhaps not in your neighborhood, but what about the other immense part of the world's population?

One thing is for sure. Sea glass will be around for a long, long time.

~ David C. Schneider at OdysseySeaGlass.com

Have you missed out on the new pages and blogs at Odyssey Sea Glass?

Check them out quickly and easily on our Sea Glass Blog or take a look at a selection below that you might have missed.

Happy hunting to all!

David and Lin Schneider OdysseySeaGlass.com

Did You Miss These Exciting Blogs?

Selected Pages from Odyssey and Contributors

Nov 11, 2013

Beach Glass Collecting for the First Time

~ submitted by David (and Lin) in Huanchaco, Peru Do you remember going beach glass collecting for the first time? I have to admit, I (David) don't my